Fan Culture @ Swarthmore

So, there were a couple of things that I wanted to discuss today that came up in class and in Julie Levin Russo’s talk. They aren’t really related, but I thought it would be obnoxious of me to create two blog posts, so I’ve created one obnoxiously long post. Here goes.

1. In the discussion of fan economy v. mainstream economy, there has been a fair amount of objection to the ways the producers have run their economy, i.e., for profit. This has been contrasted to the fan “gift economy,” which I think in our discussions has been cast as somehow a little more pure, worthy, creatively inspired (the assumption that if you’re not doing something for the money, your artistic vision becomes the primary focus of a reading), etc. One of the things that I’ve think we’ve lost track of is that fandom, ultimately, is a hobby. It may be an extremely consuming, engaging, important, totally all-consuming hobby, but it is not a person’s job (mostly–for a very few it is). Presumably, fans are participating in capitalist forms of commodity/labor production and exchange–just not in fandom. But they have jobs that give them the capital that allows them to work within the fan gift economy. Going back to Bizzy’s point from last week about exclusionary issues in fandom, I think that you could make an argument that the gift economy is not necessarily lowering the barriers to fandom, but raising them–people who would perhaps like to produce for fandom may not be able to afford to enter this world if they cannot turn their significant time and effort investments into money. Poorer people may need to spend their time on a profitable venture–it’s only those with a financial cushion who can afford this gift economy.

On the flip side, I do think we need to recognize that producers create their texts and expect to live off of them. To me, it is therefore not the same to ask them to participate in an economy of free exchange the way fans ask other fans to. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t problems when producers attempt to turn fan work into a profit-venture or attack fans for violating copyright (and therefore their profit margins). There’s a huge power imbalance that Julie Russo brought up with YouTube taking down videos when producers ask, but fans basically can’t appeal. Also, many make the argument that producers are making truly ludicrous amounts of money off of their work, and therefore the fact that fans have cut very narrowly into that is negligible. I’m more in tune with the first argument than the second; I just don’t think it’s up to fans to decide what a reasonable salary is.

2. I’ve been thinking a lot about the point that Julie Russo made about how fandom should, in some ways, be a protected space for queer and feminist expression, and that’s part of the reason why certain voices in the mainstream should not be able to co-opt vids (to give one example from the lecture–people laughing at the Brokeback Mountain parodies out of homophobia). Ultimately, I think I still disagree. I’m simply not prepared to say that being a fan is the same thing as being queer, or being a woman, or being a person of color, or any other kind of deeply marginalized group in our society.

To explain, I want to reference where I come down on a similar issue–the recent controversy over the Campus Republicans’ use of queer slogans like “coming out.” (I know many people are sick of this discussion, so I’ll try to keep it short.) I really support the people who objected to the Republicans’ posters, because I think that a) Being queer is not something that is/should be negotiable–society has no right to question the legitimacy of someone’s sexual orientation; b) Queer people are very silenced in society; c) Republicans are doing a lot of the silencing; d) Republicans appropriating queer slogans is therefore doubly silencing, problemmatic (though indirect) mockery, and a totally illegitimate comparison of what it means to be a conservative in a liberal environment v. what it means to be queer in a straight society. (Note: I really don’t mean to piss off any Republicans in the class, I’m trying to make a point about fandom, I promise.)

Now, right off the bat, I don’t think that fans as fans (not as queer people, women, etc.) can simply claim an unquestionable perspective because they are a minority. I think that there are legitimate ways to look at fan production and disagree with it–maybe even laugh at it. I understand that this may be hurtful to the producer, but I don’t think that it is necessarily oppressive. Being a fan means taking a certain perspective on a text; it is not an inherent, unchangeable part of an identity (like sex, race, sexuality). Questioning it is therefore not the same as questioning other marginalized identites. I could laugh at a Kirk/Spock slash vid not out of homophobia, but because I see these characters as so obviously straight that this pairing is amusing. My interpretation of that text should not be less privileged. Similarly, I could also laugh if a vid took a character that in the show canon I interpreted as obviously queer (say, Jack from Will and Grace) and paired him with a woman–that would be amusing to me, even if the vidder was completely sincere (and maybe trying to make some kind of feminist statement about editing women out of fan texts).

Because fan identity is a choice, the fan community is so diverse, and fan production has so many available meanings, I think it’s simply impossible to take most of fandom and say, “This is subversive minority speech. Because it protests The Man (the mainstream), it is silencing for The Man to comment unfavorably upon it/co-opt it/trivialize it.” This isn’t to say I think it’s okay that people laugh at Brokeback Mountain parodies out of homophobia; it is to say that I think that fan production should not be sequestered away and viewed by limited communities, and given the openness with which I think it should be displayed and discussed, I have to accept the fact that a few idiots will comment on the conversation.

hey…. so i’m certain (and hope) people will feel free to talk about whatever they please here – including questions raised at the end about the commercial aspect of porn, and the fine line between accepted forms of pornography and slash… etc. etc.

but i have  a few questions that were sparked by today’s conversation that i guess have been simmering under the surface for some time that i’d like to spew here – and i’d love to hear your thoghts.

first, to build on the point of anthropological representation that bizzy brought up… I know that more frequently today throughout the field of anthropology, scholars are struggling with the “right”/”best” process of representing the Other to minimalize objectification/exotification/etc. – to the point that few scholars have taken the extreme stance that they cannot/should not be allowed to produce works about anyone outside of the group that the anthropologist identifies with… (I can’t remember for the life of me which theorists argue which points but both Jay Ruby (ch 8!) and Terence Turner add compelling insight to the discourse surrounding representation.) ANYWAY – applying this crucial debate to fan productions and slash has raised a series of interesting questions for me:

- do slashers (specifically heterosexual women) even have the right to create this politically charged, self-serving portrayal of homosexuality/homoeroticism (even when readers understand that it is taking place in a fictional realm) when they themselves do not identify with the identities being objectified?

- if so, then do slashers need to be actively engaging in the  political discourse surrounding their practices instead of maybe shying away from them by keeping the mass media and public away?

- do slashers have a political/social responsibility to their queer subject matter? (this reminds me of some of the discussion we had when considering the subversive nature of subcultures… and if fan production isn’t actually a political statement but just pure enjoyment and so on…)

i also worry that by even asking these questions i’m perpetuating something similar to what ariel mentioned when comparing how lesbian porn and men’s consumption of it is not analyzed with critical vigor as slash… but is instead socially acceptable (to a degree) and financially lucrative to boot.

but alas, i am left with this unnerving sense of the denial/ignorance of the potential power of slash if we just leave this paradoxical debate with: “it’s just hott.”

by Nicole Boyle and Lauren Smith

Our fan artifact is more of a whole fan infrastructure. The Organization of Transformative Works is an ongoing fan movement that began in 2007 as a response to a corporation’s attempt to set up a profitable online archive– called FanLib– for writers to post their fanfiction. Many fans reacted with outrage: Why should an organization of outsiders try to make a profit out of them? As we’ve discussed in class, fandom has historically resisted the idea of fans making a profit from their fannish writing; partially because of fear of legal prosecution, the tradition of fandom as a gift economy works as a self-policing moral imperative. Fans who attempt to charge for their fanfiction are almost universally condemned by their peers. FanLib’s attempt to profit from its “user-generated content”, therefore, was seen as an ultimate violation: a corporate organization in the realm of passionate amateurs, a board comprised of men in a traditionally female space, disregarding fandom’s pre-existing mores in– for the cherry on the cake– a condescending manner. (A BusinessWeek article notes: “The genius of FanLib is realizing that fans can be happy just being recognized“).

In reaction, a collection of fanfiction writers on LiveJournal (an enormous hub for media fandom on the internet) began to envision an “Archive of One’s Own“. This multifandom repository for fanfic was envisioned as a non-profit endeavor, run for fans by fans. As the fans’ plans coalesced, and a board for the nonprofit organization formed, their ambitions expanded. Under the new name The Organization of Transformative Works (OTW), they also started to plan for a wiki of fannish history and an academic journal about transformative works. Finally, the OTW took the unprecedented step of planning for a system of legal help for fans whose works come under attack for copyright violations. This is significant, because a large contribution to keeping fans and media fandom underground has been the fannish fear of legal action by the holders of copyrighted material.

To show that they were serious about this new organization, the board members attached their real names to the organization. (Note that Rebecca Tushnet, who we will be reading later on in the semester, is on the board). Also, to ensure that OTW never profited or became too controlled by a single fan, the board decided to apply for non-profit organizational status.

******************

The OTW’s incorporation has inspired many ripples of reaction around media fandom. Some fans’ reasons for joining/supporting the OTW (gathered from the OTW’s online newsletter) include:

Naomi Novik describes her reason for dedicating herself: I also care about this community that has welcomed me and given me a place to play and grow. I care about and value the creative work I have done here myself and that’s been made by others that I’ve enjoyed. So I am willing to be serious once in a while too, and to buckle down and do some real and not immediately fun work.

Kristina Busse argues from an acafan’s perspective: Context always matters, but rarely as much as it does in fan fiction, created within and meant for a specific community. If we can create an infrastructure that allows such contextualization of individual stories, we might be a long step toward not everyone trying to find the most ridiculous out there example for a story in order to mock both it and fandom through it.

Dafna Greer cares about the public record:I’m tired of journalists getting everything about fandom wrong. I don’t just mean the simple stuff, like what slash is, or that we’re not all 12 (or 45, or whatever the narrative is that week), I mean the whole context of fandom. You have journalists writing about mash-ups as if vidding never existed and about user-generated content as if it was something invented 2 years ago. It’s just embarrassing. Not as a fan, mind you. It’s embarrassing as a journalist.

Speranza wants autonomy for fans, not free content for outsider corporations: The OTW is created on the model of public television or public radio–Channel 13, as we have it in New York. It’s free. There are no ads. Anyone can watch it or listen to it. And a few people who care about public television and who can afford it become ‘members’–you remember the slogan: ‘this is member-supported NPR, this is member-supported Channel 13.’ And so I’m happy to contribute my time, money, and energy to help fans buy servers and write software and keep our ’social network’ a real community. And I hope you will, too.

******************

Of course, not all fans champion the OTW. The long history of fandom being an underground subculture made some fans wary of change: for example, ethrosdemon relishes the subcultural aspect of media fandom, along a model like Dick Hebdige’s: “Anyway, I didn’t make the choice to bring fandom to the blinding light of day, but in the same breath, I’m not ashamed of it. Yes, we are a subculture obsessed with buttsex, incest, noncon, bestiality, and inside jokes. That’s the appeal, frankly. The SUBcultural aspect is what unites us,” she writes.

Some fans criticized the narrow focus of the OTW:

Purplepopple complains that the OTW will pay too much attention to certain parts of fandom: “Fannish works predate the 1970s. They did not all grow out from the same cultural shared heritage. They were not all tied in to English speaking, Anglo-centric fandom. The concept of fandom predates Star Trek and Harry Potter was not the second biggest most influential fandom after Star Trek.”

Boogieshoes takes issue with OTW’s focus on feminism: “1) i really *don’t* value fandom as a female dominated space – i’d be doing this if there were no girls here tomorrow, and i’d be happy and 2) frankly, *i’d* rather be valued for *what i contribute* than for a genetic quirk i can’t actually control.”

spare_change and Rat Creature points out the problems they have with being represented by acafans: “I don’t think that acafen are the only ones dragging fandom into the public eye. I think that the way they are doing so, however, is just as lame, unrepresentative, and self-serving as FanLib or any ‘look at those wackos’ article on a mainstream news site, though, so I don’t see why I should support them any more than any of the other ways fandom gets publicized.”

For some fans, the OTW’s visibility actives the real fear that fannish activities could hold repercussions for one’s personal life. (In Ethan Zuckerman’s post introducing the OTW, he mentions The Church of Subgenius Custody Case, a similar circumstance in which a woman’s online activities impacted her child custody case).

******************

Finally, sympathetic outsiders to media fandom also reacted to the formation of the new organization:

Ethan Zuckerman, mentioned above, thought it was a good idea: “It’s a fascinating new proto-nonprofit determined to defend media fandom from the excesses of copyright and to help fanfic writers and vidders maintain control of their remixed works.”

BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow also came out in favor of the organization: “This is such a good idea. When Naomi [Novik] described it at the WorldCon at a panel that we were on together, I wrote her a check on the spot for $500 to fund the org. I hope she cashes it now that they’ve formally announced.”

The Institute for the Future of the Book agreed: “All looks very promising.”

Bob Rehak himself is on the board of the academic journal: “The editors, Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson, have kindly invited me to participate on the editorial review board; I accepted with pleasure.”

******************

We consider the OTW’s incorporation significant because it represents an unprecedented move in media fandom. We’ve talked in class about capitalistic mainstream forces absorbing fan culture– in the manner Dick Hebdige mentioned mainstream fashion absorbing, and taming, punk style– but the OTW came about because a team of fans refused to let themselves become fodder for a FanLib, capitalist organization. Instead, they organized for their own purposes. The OTW is part of the rising visibility of media fandom, just as is the fact that Swarthmore College is offering this class. Sounds cool? Maybe you should write a paper about it and submit it to the journal!

The Kirk/Spock video of Kathy’s last post caused some controversy in 2006 when it was uploaded to YouTube without its creators’ permission. The people who make and distribute fan videos have maintained a general standard of secrecy about it, for various material/legal reasons, and some were irritated at what they saw as their complicated art being flattened and misread without the context that gave it meaning. (This fan sums it up: “I’ve done the whole show-vids-to-nonfans thing, and most of them are boggled and confused. They’re not seeing the same vids we are.”) Henry Jenkins wrote an excellent post on the affair, which I really highly recommend at least skimming before/after you watch the YouTube link.

Of course, I confess, I’m always interested in the analysis fans themselves have to offer regarding their own situations, so I dug around for some fan commentary on the situation.

Metafandom is a popular digest-style roundup of fannish discussions happening on LiveJournal. (We often call those discussion “fannish meta”: hence the name.) These conversations range from the trivial to the deeply philosophical, fandom-specific or genre-spanning. The digest’s moderators try to be as inclusive as possible, so there’s a lot of noise to wade through, but when any big controversy hits LiveJournal media fandom– whether it’s about racist re-casting of characters in alternate-universe fanfiction, “clip theft” in fan videos, or the mores of fanfiction about real people– you can find traces of the discussion as it went down by looking up Metafandom’s archives.

So I visited the archives on the same day of Jenkin’s blog post, to see what the fans were saying. Scroll down to “Fan Vids”: a smattering of opinions about the visibility of fanvideos– a form of art long underground as a matter of course– in the age of mainstream internet media. This fan and this fan digest the Jenkins post for their readers– I’d especially recommend glancing at the comments to those posts, where other fans praise or criticize some of Jenkins’s individual points. This post, and its comments, shed a little more light on the historical reasons that video-makers dig privacy.

Finally, one of my favorite essays on the subject: this post (by a Swarthmore graduate!) will offer a bridge for us in the coming weeks to Convergence Culture and other discussions about money and fandom (which I am fascinated by from a feminist perspective). She quotes, from the very first post I linked to:

It’s been bothering me increasingly in recent months, as fanvids get posted on YouTube (not by the creators), that my non-fannish friends link to them as just another cool internet video. Of course, how would non-fannish folks recognise the incredible violation of fannish etiquette involved in posting a vid to YouTube? They’re insider creations, not intended for general consumption, and so why would non-insiders know the etiquette involved?

And answers:

Well, first what it is is we have to start adjusting to the fact that we’re not insiders anymore — the world got really small really fast, and we are right there in the spotlight, or, as Punk put it, they can see us now. We’ve been on the cutting edge, “hiding” on the internet with our creations, but here in Web 2.0, the user-created web, we can’t hide anymore, we are the internet. And so of course people are going to try and find ways to popularize us — eventually, they will try and find ways to use us to make money.

She herself gets followup from new posts like this, this, and this one (which I quoted at the very beginning of this post).

At any rate– I hope I’ve given you a sense of the conversation that goes around LiveJournal fandom under the skin of big controversies. We talked a little bit in class about the voice of the subject as represented in ethnography like Seiter’s or Radway’s. I think it’s appropriate here to check in with some fannish voices, to accompany Henry Jenkins wearing his ethnographer’s hat.